Icenium + Kendo UI = Awesome

Today is a big day for Team Telerik (makers of Kendo UI)! After years of planning and production, today marks the official release of our newest product, Icenium.

And it's awesome.

Icenium is the industry’s first end-to-end, Integrated Cloud Environment (ICE), designed to revolutionize the development of hybrid mobile apps. It combines a powerful set of development tools, mobile simulators, and cloud services in an integrated package that makes it easy for anyone to jump-in to mobile app dev. Today's release ships both the desktop PC development client (Graphite) and the browser-based development client (Mist), along with a companion app for iOS that assists with app development (Ion).

If you did not get to check-out Icenium during the private beta (or even if you did), you've got to check it out today. Right now!

For Kendo UI fans and customers, today's release is interesting for a couple of reasons:

Kendo UI Mobile in Icenium

Kendo UI Mobile and Icenium were made for each other (literally). As this audience should know, Kendo UI Mobile is a collection of HTML5 and JavaScript widgets designed to help developers build native app experiences using web standards. Kendo UI Mobile is unique in its ability to automatically adapt to different mobile platforms, precisely matching the native UX of platforms like iOS and Android. It's the fastest way for developers to build apps that reach the largest number of people. Apps built with Kendo UI can be deployed via the mobile browser or packaged with tools like Cordova and deployed via traditional App Stores.

If you elect to package a Kendo UI Mobile app, normally that means a number new challenges:

You've got to download a packaging framework (like Cordova)

You've got to setup the Cordova app shells for each target platform

You've got setup different IDEs (like Xcode and Eclipse)

(And if you're on Windows) You've got to get a Mac to build apps for iOS

With Icenium, all of that hassle goes away.

In an Integrated Cloud Environment, everything from your files and projects to your build tools and frameworks are ready to go wherever and whenever you are. Simply open Icenium, do some development with Kendo UI Mobile, and deploy your app to iOS and Android devices. All of the normal complexity associated with hybrid apps is abstracted away to the cloud.

And since Icenium is from Telerik, we've gone one step further and included access to Kendo UI Mobile in every Icenium subscription! There's even a default project template that can have you up and running with Kendo UI Mobile dev in seconds. More on this special access to Kendo UI in a minute.

Kendo UI in action in Mist

The Icenium Mist development client is a super helpful tool. It gives you access to all of your Icenium projects in any capable HTML5 browser, and it includes many of the Icenium tools (code editor, project build, version control, and more).

It's also built using Kendo UI Web!

If you look closely, you'll see that the Mist client is using many of the Kendo UI Web widgets, including Splitter, Treeview, TabStrip, Menu, Upload, and ListView. It's also using pieces of the Kendo UI framework, like MVVM, under the covers to provide a modern, responsive, and cross-browser ready HTML5 tool.

What does this mean to you? Two things:

This is some serious dog fooding. Having an internal team at Telerik consume Kendo UI to power such an important, customer-facing piece of Icenium only helps make Kendo UI a better product. All of the feedback and lessons we learn from supporting Icenium go directly in to make Kendo UI a better, faster toolset for your next HTML and JavaScript project.

This is a great "reference" implementation of Kendo UI Web. If you've ever wanted to see how some seriously talented engineers would use Kendo UI Web to build a modern web-based interface, here's your chance to "View Source" and see exactly how it's done.

Mobile License Details

out of the box. This access is usable for any project you develop using Icenium, and it gives you full access to all of Kendo UI Mobile. It is not a complete unrestricted license, though.

If you want access to Kendo UI's professional support, you still need to purchase a normal Kendo UI Mobile ($199) commercial license. That license will give you support, access to incremental builds, and a royalty free license you can use in any of your projects.

Bottom line: If you've already got a Kendo UI Mobile license, you're good to go! If you decide to subscribe to Icenium and use Kendo UI Mobile, that's awesome! If you want the benefits of a full license (like support), though, consider upgrading to a Kendo UI Mobile license purchase.

Next Steps

You should also take a couple of minutes and watch the new "Introducing Icenium" video. You might spot my cameo in there in a couple of places. We hope you enjoy Icenium as much as we do. Stay tuned for much more coverage of Icenium and Kendo UI working together in the coming months.

About the AuthorTodd Anglin is an avid HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript advocate, and geek about all things web development. He is an active speaker and author, helping developers around the world learn and adopt HTML5. Todd works for Telerik as VP of HTML5 Web & Mobile Tools, where his current technical focus is on Kendo UI. Todd is @toddanglin on Twitter.

I'm now using Icenium (thanks guys for making it available for free until May 2013!) and, being a Dreamweaver user for ages, I can say that I'm very impressed.

I do wish, though, that Icenium expand its feature set and provide additional features/tools that will also make it easy to package apps created in HTML5/JS/CSS3 targeted for the DESKTOP (Windows 7/8 and Mac OS X).

I just purchased Kendo UI Complete a few weeks ago, and I'm so looking forward to attending Kendo UI's Dec. 5 webinar with Google on "Building Chrome Packaged Apps". I'm glad the Kendo UI team is looking into this area for us independent developers who develop desktop applications for our clients.

My Question:

Is the Icenium team thinking of providing these features/tools in Icenium that will enable developers to package applications (ala Chrome-Packaged Apps, or based on Chromium Embedded) for Windows 7/8 and Mac OS X? If so, is there any ETA on these features?